


iksi daor vali

by theformerone



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Free and Independent North AU, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Prophetic Dreams, Timeline What Timeline, Warg Arya Stark, Warg Sansa Stark, Wargs (ASoIaF), Westeros is under Lannister/Baratheon rule, Wherein the War of Conquest never happened
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-26 13:33:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19006816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theformerone/pseuds/theformerone
Summary: In a world where the Targaryens never conquered Westeros, a Daenerys in exile is tasked by her eldest brother to retake their homeland of Essos before Prince Viserys of Dragonstone can do it first.Rhaegar tells Dany to ride North; swears that the northmen will raise their banners, will join her khalasar and the Unsullied and help her take the Dragon Throne from their father and brother, if she calls. Dany doesn't know if Rhaegar has gone mad, but she doesn't have a choice except to trust him, and put their fate in Winterfell's hands.





	iksi daor vali

**Author's Note:**

> timeline has been severely crunched to make this work. such is (fan)fiction.

"This way, princess," Varys says, holding the little light close to his face as they take the steps two, maybe three at a time. 

Dany does not bother telling him that she knows this stairwell as well as she knows the back of her own hand. That she knows the tower they are rising leads to the nursery, and higher still, the outlook, where she would have watched her children play the sky if the gods had been kinder to her.

Instead, she turns over her shoulder. Missandei is there, right behind her, her hair covered the same way Dany's is. They had considered coloring Dany's hair for this particular exploit, but Rhaegar was rumored to be sick with fever, and Daenerys did not want to confuse her brother. 

It had been years since she had seen him. As a little girl, she had not understood his exile, or his imprisonment. Their father had locked Rhaegar away in the nursery for his indiscretion with Lyanna Stark. When the woman had been returned to her northern home, the Mad King had his son taken up to the rooms where he played in as a child and had not looked on him since. 

It has been years still since then. She had been fifteen when Viserys saw fit to have her sent across the Narrow Sea, and married to Khal Drogo. Dany had thought it was a slight against her then. She would have been correct in thinking so. Their father had named Viserys his heir after Rhaegar's theft of the Stark woman, and a woman ruling Dragonstone was 'unthinkable', to quote Viserys. So to the desert Dany was sent. 

She is a woman of nineteen now. A Khaleesi and a widow. A chain-breaker. Mother of three infant dragons, hidden away still. All but little Rhaegal, large enough to look like a cat shaped lump beneath her cloak.   

Dany has no doubt that her children will keep their loyalty to her, but she knows better than to risk showing her hand to her father and second brother. Their instincts would either be to steal or slaughter them, nevermind finding and torturing Illyrio to discover where he found their eggs, and if there were more. 

She gives Rhaegal a scratch on the back of the head. With his belly full and without Drogon around to goad him on, he would be in a pleasant mood for the evening. That would be good. Dany knew that having him along was a risk, but it would be worth it, if the sight of him raised Rhaegar's spirits. 

The stairs rise onward into oblivion, but Dany's feet do not hurt. Missandei does not complain. Grey Worm is waiting with a rowboat to take them back to Balerion, while a small force of her khalasar pillage the boats of the fishermen for extra supplies. They all must be back three hours before dawn. They do not have very much time. 

Varys stops, but Dany does not. She rounds on the door -unguarded- and does not knock. Varys ducks politely around her to stick the key in the massive lock, and Missandei comes to stand beside her as this room from her childhood materializes in front of her. 

It is poorly decorated, to be sure. There is no remaining charm from her girlhood left in the nursery, and it is obvious that their father did not intend to make Rhaegar's stay comfortable. Still. The curtains are large and heavy, a wash of the reds and oranges and pinks that the sky travels through before sunrise. A soft, sprawling rug with a map of the known world stretches across the floor, and Dany can remember laying on her belly, stacking blocks and brushing the hair of a doll. 

Nurses had raised her, but they were kind nurses. Varys' women, all of them under his watchful eye and steady control, now that she is old enough to know. Dany wonders if she will be able to command such loyalty, that she can tell someone to be kind to a child, and know that they will be. 

She steps into the room, dimly lit, because to deny a Targaryen a hearth fire is the same as denying a dragon its nature. But Dany has a dragon in her arms and proof of her blood in her unburnt skin, and darkness does not frighten her. 

It does, however, make her older brother look terribly small in his sickbed. 

She nearly drops Rhaegal to run to him, and her son makes a little screech at the lack of refinement in the gesture. He beats his wings before landing on the ground himself, and Dany runs to her brother's side. 

His forehead is clammy with fever. There is a bowl and cloth at his bedside, and Dany grabs them, pursing her lips at the coolness of the water. She wets and wrings the rag before carefully drawing it across Rhaegar's brow. It is then that he opens his eyes. 

Glassy from fever, yes, but clear, and that is enough to make Dany want to thank the gods. 

"Mandia," he murmurs, blinking slowly. "Ñuha byka Dany."

She smiles at him as he raises his hand to touch her face. How did four years pass so quickly? Did she look very different? Had she changed, no longer in her Targaryen blacks, but in the rich blues of Essos? Would she look even stranger to him in the leathers of her khalasar? 

"Rytsas, uēpkta lēkia," she says, covering his hand on her cheek with her own palm. She notices the clamminess of his hands, wonders if this fever is truly a fever, or if he has been poisoned. It would not be below Viserys to obliterate any challenge to his claim to the Derkomai. "Are you well?"

Rhaegar smiles at her, and Dany's heart clenches at the pity that wells in her chest. He is not dying, no, but he is not well. And if he has risked so much as to call her to him, then the situation must have been more dire than Dany had initially thought. 

"Better, now that you are here." He removes his hand from her face, and takes her palms in his to kiss them. When he looks back into her eyes, there are tears there, but he doesn't give her time to ask about them. "Who is this?"

Dany turns over her shoulder to where Missandei is standing several feet behind her. She gestures the other woman forward before turning back to her brother. 

"Rhaegar, this is Missandei, one of my most trusted advisors. Without her good counsel, I would be lost." 

"I am happy to know you, Missandei," Rhaegar says over Dany's shoulder. "Thank you for keeping this one safe. She can be very strong minded." 

He gives her hand a squeeze as he says it, and Dany squeezes her brother's hand back. Missandei offers a polite curtsey, and keeps her eyes low as she says, "All women must be strong minded to survive. Your sister is wise, Prince Rhaegar. It is an honor to serve her."

"I am glad you have such friends," Rhaegar says, capturing Dany's attention. But his eyes are caught again by something else, and Dany hears the sound of wings beating and catching formerly still wind. "Who is this?"

Rhaegar is as breathless as anyone who sees a dragon for the first time is. But Rhaegar is Dany's blood, and he is the blood of the dragon. The green-and-gold dragon flying to reach the high ceiling of the nursery (painted with stars and comets, the old Valyrian Freehold, dragons and their hatchlings) to him was proof of the promise of their birth. Proof of the strength of Old Valyria. Proof of their righteousness, and of their father's madness. 

"This," Dany says, eyes tracking Rhaegal as he flies, "is Rhaegal. My son." 

"Your son?"

"I have another," she nods, "and a daughter."

" _Three?_ " 

Rhaegar's excitement sends him into a fit of coughing that doubles him over. Dany rears back on her heels, suddenly at a loss. Missandei steps around her, and without a word, carefully lays hands on the prince's back, coaxing the cough out of him. She then draws him back down into bed, pushing his shoulders back into the soft mattress so new air can get into his lungs. 

"Thank you, Missandei," Dany whispers, and Missandei only smiles in acknowledgement. Rhaegal leaves the ceiling to study the commotion, and Dany's son curls up in her lap, his long neck letting him peer at Rhaegar, now prone in bed. 

"Keep them safe," her brother begins. The plea is so sudden and earnest, Dany knows that she must listen. "As if they are your children as much as you are our mother's. Keep them  _safe_ , Dany. You  _must._ " 

"I will." She puts one hand on Rhaegal's head, and the other on her brother's hand. "I swear to you, I will."

Rhaegar relaxes minutely, and his eyes tick to Rhaegal in front of him. 

"In your letters - , I never would have dreamed - ,"

"Neither would I."

"But _you_ did."

His gaze is terribly serious, but he does not look at her. Only at Rhaegal, who stares back at him, tilting his head ever so often, as if he is investigating Rhaegar as closely as Rhaegar is investigating him. 

"You were named for Daenerys of Sunspear, who was named for Daenys the Dreamer." Rhaegar flips his hand in her grip, and laces their fingers together. "Do you know what she dreamt?"

"The Doom of Valyria."

"Yes," Rhaegar says, and he looks to her briefly, his eyes sparkling with pride and sickness. "And you dreamed those stone eggs would hatch, too, didn't you, Dany? You told me in your letter, I remember. You dreamed it. You _dreamed_ it."

Dany nods, pursing her lips together as she does. Yes, she had dreamt her eggs would hatch if she placed them in the fire. But she had also dreamt that her dragons would all be sons, and that she would bear Khal Drogo a daughter who would become the Khaleesi fin sajo shieraki, the Queen Who Mounts the Stars. But Rhaea had died a little princess inside of Dany, and Rhaena had hatched after Drogo's body burned but Dany's did not.

"I have many dreams, brother," she says, hoping to placate him, but her words only serve to animate Rhaegar, who looks at Dany as if she's insulted him. 

"If no one had listened to Daenys the Dreamer, the Targaryens would have perished with our cousins in Old Valyria. If you had not listened to your dreams, your dragons would be nothing but stone, left behind in a desert waste." 

Rhaegar tries to push himself up to sitting, and Dany edges forward to stop him. He grunts when she tries to push him back down, and instead, she uses one arm to support him, Rhaegal shuffling off of her lap as she does. Missandei sits beside her, moving pillows to support the ailing prince. 

"Your dreams are _precious_ , Dany," he insists. "Heed them. Let them guide you. Promise me." 

She says the words quickly, "I promise," hoping that they will calm him down, but they don't. Instead, Rhaegar clenches his jaw and squeezes Dany's hand in a bruising grip. 

"You must trust your dreams, Dany," Rhaegar repeats. "You must trust yourself. No woman has ever left House Targaryen in ruins, and neither have any that have had dreams like yours. Swear to me on our mother's grave that you will let them guide you."

There is no touch of madness in him that Daenerys can surmise from just looking at her brother in the face. She hopes that will be enough. Madness can hide dormant in a Targaryen until a moment of extreme weakness excites them. 

"I swear on the grave of Rhaella Targaryen," Dany says, choosing the words carefully, "I swear on our mother."

Rhaegar calms instantly, and Dany's hackles raise. That was a fight too easily won. Was it the fever, making Rhaegar malleable, or was it something else? 

Rhaegar's gaze flickers from Dany to Varys behind her, and to the windows where he is perched. There is the distant sound of whooping and shouting, which means Dany's khalasar has begun their work, which means they are running out of time. 

"The time has come."

Rhaegar shifts in his seat, reaching with a trembling hand to the table at his bedside, where an envelope stamped with his personal seal of a single black dragon sits. He takes the envelope in his hands, still gently shaking, before he looks to Dany. 

The room grows heavy around her, as if Rhaegar is not handing her an envelope, but a death sentence. 

"Your khalasar is loyal. Your Unsullied are well trained. If you wanted to retake Essos for the Targaryens now, you could, I believe that."

But - 

"Viserys would never allow it, much less our father. They have their own plans."

Dany was well aware. She had been sold to Khal Drogo for his khalasar, which Viserys had hoped to use to start his Conquest of Essos, to retake the land that had belonged to their forebearers. Khal Drogo's death and a number of her khalasar abandoning her had left Dany a useless game piece in her brother's eyes.

In the words of his letter, due to her failure of securing an heir for her 'horse lord savage husband', she was welcome to 'die in the desert like the carrion she always had been'. Daenerys the Unlucky, he called her in the letter. Daenerys Motherkiller. She was a stain to be scraped away. Viserys would find a wife in Dorne since Dany's womb had proven to be as unpredictable as their mother's before her.

But Dany had not rolled over and died as she was expected to. At least, not in the way she was supposed to have. 

When Dany walked out of the fire that burned her husband's corpse, she rooted out every spy in her khalasar and had her remaining bloodriders slit their throats. She kept her children hidden, and her hair covered. She bought her Unsullied army in peace, used false names, sent Missandei or one of her Dothraki handmaidens out styled as the Khaleesi to do her bidding. 

As far as Viserys was concerned, Dany was actually dead. She couldn't say what her father thought of her, if he thought of her at all. 

Rhaegar was the only piece of home that she had carried with her all this time. The memory of playing with him in the nursery, even when she had been moved out of it, and he had been moved permanently into it. Sneaking him fruits and sweets, listening to him read her stories. 

They had started writing letters that Varys had dutifully carried (or had someone carry) across Dragonstone throughout Dany's childhood until she was sent away to be married. They had not stopped, though their letters were written in code now, and burned after reading. 

"Viserys has eight of Oberyn Martell's daughters to choose from. And when he weds one, he will have the forces of Dorne at his back to take Essos." Rhaegar looks down at the envelope in his hands before back up at Dany. His hair has grown long, into a tail about the length as hers, and Dany almost wants to braid it. Surely a prince that had won a battle so covert as staying alive under imprisonment would deserve a Dothraki braid. "You must take back the Derkomai before he gets the chance."

Daenerys has her own doubts. Even when this plan (and Dany herself) was in infancy, Rhaegar and Varys knew Dany was the only one left that could take the Dragon Throne back from Viserys. For one, her stillborn daughter was proof that she could produce an heir; Aerys had, had Rhaegar castrated for his theft of Lyanna Stark, even though the woman had been returned to her family unharmed. 

The promise of Dany being able to bear a child that could keep the Derkomai once she claimed it for herself was truly, the only reason why she was being trusted with this conquest. She had seen very little of Essos in her time there, due to the necessity of her constant hiding. She wasn't even sure if it was a place she wanted to rule. 

But it was her birthright. Dany was a just ruler, she knew that. Even when she had killed, it had been done in self defense. To protect herself, and to protect Rhaegar. Then to protect her khalasar, then her dragons, then Missandei, and then the Unsullied. It was as if she had accidentally become mother to hundreds of people that suddenly depended on her. 

And the thought of Viserys sailing to Essos - 

Daenerys had seen awful things there. Crucifixions. Slavery. All manner of vile wickedness and pain heaped upon innocent heads. Viserys would not be a king that changed that order. He would be a king that made it worse. 

Being a queen was something that had been decided for Dany before she was born. Many of the decisions that now guided her life had been made in such a manner. Her choice was not whether or not she followed her destiny; her choice was how she would get there, and by what means. 

Ser Jorah had once told her that the best rulers were those that did not want to rule. She hopes for the people of Essos ( _her_ people, Rhaegar would insist) that Ser Jorah is right. 

"Ride north."

Dany shakes her head, surprise grinding her thoughts to a halt. 

"North?" 

Rhaegar nods firmly. Dany looks to Missandei, whose face is as perfectly blank as it always is when she's 'not listening' to a conversation. 

"What is in the north?" 

"Winterfell, rūs mandia," he replies, and a sad little chuckle escapes him. He points over Dany's shoulder at the map of the world on their floor. "You know where it is."

Dany bites her tongue to keep herself from saying something rude. She can see from the window that dawn will be coming soon. The nursery was the most easily defensible part of the Dragonstone castle because of its distance from the ground, but that same distance was one Dany and Missandei needed to travel before they could safely return to Grey Worm and the Balerion. 

"What is in Winterfell, lēkia?"

Rhaegar rises with a suddenness that forces Dany back. She falls backward, and Missandei manages to catch her arm before her back can hit the floor. Rhaegal hisses, snapping at his namesake's ankles as he crosses the room with unsure steps. 

He reaches the closet where Dany remembers frilly dresses and toy swords used to tumble out when she was a girl. Rhaegar opens it, throwing those dresses and swords and blankets and toys away before he finds what he's looking for. 

He turns around, the envelope with his seal on it tucked in the corner of his mouth. In his arms is a rug, rolled up, and Varys crosses to help Rhaegar set it on the ground. 

"In the North," Rhaegar says, taking the envelope from his mouth, "the dead do not always stay dead. This helps the dead die a second time."

Missandei helps Dany to her feet, and together, they cross to Rhaegar and Varys, who unroll the rug to reveal daggers made of dragonglass. 

"Show the northmen this," Rhaegar says, dropping his letter on top of the knives, "tell them there is more on Dragonstone. The King in the North will take Viserys' head himself for what is here, much less what is still left in the ground."

He tilts his head at Varys, who quickly helps him roll the rug again. Dany watches them do it, watches Rhaegar's letter get tucked away with the other dangerous things. She says nothing because she knows better. So does Varys, of course. And Missandei by now. 

No accident was ever an accident in a game of thrones, even one as little as this one. 

"If they will not come to our aid for the dragonglass," Rhaegar says as Varys rises to his feet and hands the rolled rug to Missandei, "give the King in the North my letter. It will change his mind even if these weapons do not."

"And if the King in the North does not change his mind?" 

Rhaegar looks up at Dany, and like this, he almost looks like he's pledging his fealty to her. He's got one knee bent, the other being used to help him up, his arm using the closet for support. She crouches in front of him to disrupt the image, to put their eyes on the same level. 

Rhaegar had long since turned Dany into his savior. Dany still wanted to be his little sister. 

"He will," he insists. "If not for the dragonglass or for my letter, then for you, the most beautiful woman in the six kingdoms, and all the known world."

Dany doesn't bother saying that she will not marry a northman. Does not bother saying that the only daughter she would ever bear died in her belly years ago. Does not say that her only living children have scales and wings that can protect them better than armor and guards could protect Rhaea. 

"Ride north," Rhaegar says, reaching for her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "You will find friends there. You must. Dream it, Dany, and you will."

She does not placate him. Does not promise that she will find friends, because Dany knows that such things cannot be promised by men. Instead she says, "I will come back for you."

Her childhood in Dragonstone would have been as solitary as Rhaegar's imprisonment if not for him, and for the maids that Varys paid to look after her. Viserys had taken to Dany the way Aerys had taken to Rhaella, which was to molest her in one moment, and slap her full in the face in the next. 

She had always wanted someone to rescue her when Viserys was at his most cruel, and her father was at his most distant. On the days when she was forbidden to see Rhaegar, Dany would pray that a dragon would hatch from the pits of the volcanoes of Valyria, would fly straight to her window, and set her free. And she would ride her dragon up to the nursery, where she would free Rhaegar, and the two of them would leave Dragonstone forever. 

When she had gotten older, she had imagined herself burning the castle to the ground, and Viserys with it. She had little thought or care for her father, a mad king ruling over fishermen and little else. Grooming one son for his throne of nothing while he tortured the other to death, turning a blind eye to his daughter now that she had proved herself useless in the one way women were not supposed to be useless. 

But in these prayers and plans, she had never forgotten Rhaegar. 

"I believe you," her brother says. "I gave up my claim for yours before you left because I believed in you, and I still do now." 

Dany smiles at him, but she knows that his claim is nothing. What would he have been? Prince Rhaegar of the Rhoynar and the nine broken colonies of Old Valyria? King of stones and pebbles as his father was, and his younger brother now would be? Ruling over the three and a half Velaryon cousins they still had left, and their armful of bannermen?

But Dany was his hope. Her khalasar was small, yes, but with the Unsullied at her back and her dragons by her side, taking the entirety of the Dothraki Sea would be simple. And once she had a hundred thousand Dothraki screamers, all of Essos could be hers. Even the pieces of it her ancestors had not claimed. 

"You are my queen, Daenerys," Rhaegar says, and his eyes are full to the brim with a hope that somehow managed to survive a lifetime in a place as desolate as this. "I have faith that you will succeed. It is your _birthright_. You have no other choice."

His hand tightens on her shoulder. Dany smiles at him, then opens her arms, and hugs him. 

"I know," she murmurs. "And I have faith in you. Survive, lēkia. I will need a Hand when I am queen."

 _'Survive, lēkia,'_ Dany thinks. _'Without you, I will be queen of nothing.'_

She holds him tightly because she isn't sure when she will see him again, if she will see him again. He has lived an awfully long time in Aerys' domain, though whether that be because he has been forgotten or because he is still being ignored, Dany cannot tell. Food was still coming to him, even if it was something Varys was arranging where Aerys could not see it happen, or did not care enough about it to say anything.

Viserys was his pride and focus now. So much so that he was ready to trot him out in front of Oberyn Martell's many acknowledged bastard daughters, if House Martell, too, was ready to return to Essos as a house of conquerors. 

"Avy jorrāelan, Rhaegar," she murmurs into his throat. She is surprised at her own tears. She had not cried when she was sent away from Dragonstone, and she had not even had the chance to say goodbye to him then. "Gaomagon daor nārhēdegon skorkydoso olvie."

When he hugs her back, his touch is the gentlest it's been since she first arrived, and his fignertips touched her face like Dany was made of the same stuff as dreams, like she would disappear as quickly as dreams did, too.

"Go," he says. But she feels the warm salt of his tears on her cheek. "Ride north. Come back with an army of northmen. Take back what is yours." 

Dany wipes her tears as her brother releases her from his embrace, and she wipes a tear from his cheek as well. He smiles at her, the way he did when she was little and demanded to be thrown high into the air so she could fly before safely landing in her older brother's arms again. She feels like a child now, being forced to let him go. 

"I will."

She doesn't have to be told that now is the time, and that they must go. Dany rises to her feet, wiping her cheeks as she does, and she leaves the nursery with Missandei at her side. She calls to Rhaegal, who comes to her side in a moment, and tucks him beneath her cloak, tightening it around herself to hide his scaly shape.

She does not wait for Varys to show her the way. Daenerys knows Dragonstone as well as she knows herself; the steep black steps, the servants hallways, the wide arches still so high above her head, but lower than they were when she was a girl. 

Missandei does not falter for a second, does not stay more than two steps behind Dany as she leads them a different way than the way they came, for safety's sake. 

It isn't until they are in the rowboat, Grey Worm forcing the little vessel out to sea before leaping in and taking up the oars, that Dany turns her face to the rising sun, and stares until the light forces the last of her tears from her eyes. 

She shuts them when they are dry and burning, when the grief in her is a little more sated. She slips her hand into Missandei's open palm, and Dany listens to the sea open up around her. 

In the safety of her own mind, where even Rhaegar's hopes and Varys' meddling cannot hear, Dany thinks to herself, _'I hope I dream it swallows me whole.'_

**Author's Note:**

> "Mandia. Ñuha byka Dany." -- "Sister, my little Dany"  
> "Rytsas, uēpkta lēkia." -- "Hello, older brother"  
> "rūs mandia" -- "baby sister"  
> "Avy jorrāelan, Rhaegar. Gaomagon daor nārhēdegon skorkydoso olvie." -- "I love you, Rhaegar, do not forget how much."
> 
> Derkomai is taken from the ancient Greek verb δέρκομαι meaning 'to see clearly', and is one of the roots for our word for dragon. i liked the irony of the seat of the targaryens being named after a reminder for them to be ... less the way they are.


End file.
